This movie DID NOT need to be 2.5 hours long. I think I was more depressed when I left than when I went in.

Somehow I got confused. I thought this was the Reloaded album, which my sister has, but bought in Germany (as I later found out.) The version of Sexbomb is different from the one I’m used to, and I like mine better, so that was a disappointment. And somehow, the Burning Down The House cover wasn’t quite as I’d remembered it. But it’s serviceable. And what the hell is up with Wyclef on two tracks? Whatever. Still, I love the TJ standards, and this has got ‘em.

I had forgotten just how good this was. It put a smile on my face.

I ordered this CD double set before I even saw the movie because I knew the music would be finely collated into a delightful confection, and for once I was right. I grew up as a child in the 80s, but I was the oldest kid in my family, so I didn’t really get the exposure to cool music that maybe someone with a older sibling in high school at that time might have. For me this is perfectly retro yet now. Although there are a couple of enjoyable stand alone songs, it’s really best consumed as a background of sound. Highly recommended for autumn days.

You’ve got to admire the footage they’ve assembled here. For how old it must be, they did a terriffic job of restoring it. Frankly, the story isn’t that compelling. I can’t really get to torn up about some artificially constructed sports league whose main function was to line the coffers of a media conglomerate by buying championships with a terriffic payroll for one team that basically made it impossible for the other franchises to compete against. Boo hoo.

But I’d love to get the soundtrack to this. If they made it a double disc with the soundtrack from Invincible, it’d be an AWESOME 70’s collection.

I was really jazzed for this movie, hoping it would fit into the Foul Play/What’s Up Doc genre. Of course that was not to be. I literally had to watch half of it on one night and half on another it was SO BORING, I couldn’t make it all the way through in one setting. Why do I give it 3 stars? For what it could and should have been.

UGGGH!! This is another case where the trailer is much better than the movie. Everything you know walking into the theater is all you’ll ever know about the death of George Reeves. There is no plot development whatsoever. Beautiful production values without the writing to support it.

I heard about Ms. Leon’s Guido Brunetti series a few years ago, but somehow never managed to pick one up. My interest was renewed in this first book of the series when I learned that they were making a movie out of it with Colin Firth in the lead role. Now that we have to get to the airport 2 hours early for domestic flights, I had time to kill when departing for my recent summer vacation. I saw this book in an airport book shop and thought I could do worse than immerse myself in a thriller set in “La Serenissima”.

Frankly, I could have done better, MUCH better. It’s pretty clear to me that the publisher knew that the “thriller in Venice” concept was middlebrow-posing-as-highbrow enough to entice readers, and it didn’t really bother them that there really were no thrills to speak of. Have no doubt that the Venice of our imagination is heady stuff, strong enough to erode the faculties that would demand a tight plot from a book about police investigation.

The Venice in our mind is so suggestive, that our imaginations are sent soaring with the most meager of setting details, a lazy lapse in authorial duty that most amazon.com reviews of this book fail to acknowledge.

It’s a passable film, I just didn’t feel like watching a movie about child abuse, even if Alessio Boni was in it.

This was a pure delight. A basic 17th century pirate tale improved by the terrific cast (look for George Saunders!) and beautiful technicolor. It’ll put a smile on your face.